Apocalypse forage

Some likened our apocalyptic skies this week, and the pervasive smell of smoke, to 9/11. But the smell of the Canadian wildfires was misleadingly wholesome and pleasant, like woodsmoke. Even through my N95 mask, from our Covid stash.

9/11 was a terrible smell. Like burned wires and bone. 

I went foraging, masked. 

The air grew progressively worse; it hadn't been too bad when I set out. So the world was sepia. A few days before 9/11 I dreamed that my mother and I were hiding in a bombed-out building in lower Manhattan. This was the light in the dream. In the dream three old WWII-type bombers flew low over us.

9/11 was a beautiful day, crystal clear and blue.

I collected good things in the smoke and have many projects, now, most to fuel future forage picnics. The cones will be blanched, then pickled or/and turned into jam.  The bayberry will be turned into a vivid green oil, to be frozen and scooped when needed. Also poached with summer fruits. The green peaches will be salted and fermented. their leaves will infuse white wine. The sweet clover will be dried for future biscuits, breads, and cakes.

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 Walks and Picnics

How to revive lilacs

Lilacs, waiting for friends to come to Friday supper. 

I bought the bunches at the Union Square farmers market on Wednesday, and, true-to-lilac-form, they wilted fast. Yesterday, to try and save my investment, I re-cut them, removed all the greenery, and submerged them entirely in a deep basin of water for about three hours. They perked up! Then, post supper-prep, I cruised the neighborhood, where the first roses have begun to open, and picked up some wonderful fruit tarts (Ladybird Bakery), an outstanding baguette (Winner NYC),  cold wine (Big Nose, Full Body), and locally-made gin (Windsor Wine Merchants).

Thank you, Brooklyn.

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Find me on Instagram

@marie_viljoen

 

Chickweed

Chickweed, a luscious, cool-weather green, has a unique flavor. Read all about it and get my super-easy chickweed recipe on Gardenista.

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May Day

On May Day, when the spoiled citizens of France took to their streets to protest their president's decree that they should retire at the age of 64, and not 62, I walked in the woods at the northwestern tip of Manhattan. 

It had rained all weekend, and in the old hills, untouched by the grid that flattened so much of the island, water was running, everywhere.

I visited a vast nettle patch and collected a bagful to blanch and freeze, for tarts and breads and biscuits and as-yet-uncreated mid-spring stews. Field garlic was at its fattest, too, and easy to pull from the sodden soil.

On logs obscured by fallen branches, in swathes of Japanese knotweed and emergent jewelweed, wood ears proliferated.

I saw a small handful of other people, mostly women, jogging, and walking, and the sounds that surrounded us for two hours were running water and singing birds. 

As I left a man placed his large backpack on a rock in the forest and unpacked it, possibly to spend the day in contemplation of the million shades of spring green. But as I walked down my last hill I heard from his rock the fatal sound of flat bleating. The peace was shattered by his sack of bagpipes, playing a penetrating flaccid scale, each ascending note more defeated than the last. 

My timing had been perfect.

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Find me on Instagram

@marie_viljoen

Forage picnic fare

Spring is packed with foraging, with picnics, with forays into green spaces, either alone or trailing two to 15 people, like a slow-moving, plant-obsessed comet. At the end of the group adventures, I spread out a picnic, sometimes on a bench, or on a slightly too-uneven log, or on grass, on a step, and everyone dips in, at first a little shyly, to taste some wild things. 

One of the regular features of these forage picnics is a focaccia, baked the night before, or that morning, and versatile enough to be able to convey the flavors of a season. 

In April's case those flavors have been Japanese knotweed (first cooked gently in olive oil), dandelion flowers, ramp leaves, and lately, nettles - all pressed into the jiggly, bubbly dough just before I slide it into a blazing oven.

Blanched muscari flowers are fun, and their flavor distinctive (more flowers in the dough).

Although the ones atop the focaccia did lose their color...

I manage to snap pictures of them, briefly, for my notes - time is rather tight: Picnic prep takes about eight hours, not counting the actual foraging, marketing, or route-planning. (Or the planning, the posting, the emails, the weather-watching...) 

So these are the snaps.

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Find me on Instagram

@marie_viljoen

The King (of Everything)

April has skidded past on green heels, leaving pollen devils whirling in its wake. So my blog-posting has suffered. But here is proof of life. 

Nkwe Pirelli continues to entertain and amaze. It's been 10 weeks since he moved in with us and the spectre that both the Frenchman and I feared, in adopting a new cat ("What if he's boring, and just sits there?") has been banished. I mean, he does sit. Sometimes. And, mercifully, sleeps. But he is not boring. He has found his voice, is teaching us his ways. And we have laughed more in the last couple of months than in many years.

And that's not nothing.

Now, it's back to spring.

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Find me (more often) on Instagram 

@marie_viljoen

Wisteria Syrup and Sake Popsicles

You need sake popsicles... 

One of my more inspired ideas, I made them for the first time back at 1st Place, where we had a huge old wisteria vine. To make them you need, well, sake (I like a cloudy one - so look for Nigori). You also need wisteria syrup for the flowers' unique perfume and flavor. They're still a month off from blooming in Brooklyn, but in this long, crazy country, they are already in bloom further south.

Find my recipe for wisteria syrup and the popsicles on Gardenista, and also (a slightly different version) in Forage, Harvest, Feast. 

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Wild Walks and Forage Picnics